⭑.ᐟ THE THING THAT I CAN’T IGNORE ── Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch
summary: there’s a betting pool happening at work to figure out the root of the chief attending’s newfound happiness even if it’s a no-strings attached situation that’s causing it. (wc: 4.5k)
pairing: michael robinavitch / f!reader
content: fluff/humour. secret relationship trope. age-gap relationship/friend w benefits. resident!reader (with inaccuracies of how residency works.) insecure!robby but he hides it well ft jealous!robby—i’m trying to show off some of his whimsy. medical inaccuracies errrywhere. 18+ brief mentions of sex.
Robby is watching you from Trauma One.
His sweetest kept secret.
For some reason, you have managed to bypass the seven-week itch and Robby thinks it’s down to being younger than him by a margin; meaning you often ran circles around him.
From his obstructed view, he can occasionally capture you stretching above the line of the monitor like a docile cat. Before you reduce yourself to a bad posture again, Robby notices that soft fatigue that glazes over your watery eyes when you yawn. A sleepy look that—since the big shift in your non-labelled situation—he can recognise.
Because you’ve started staying the night.
Dr. Mohan is leading a hilar flip when he asks her, “You got this?” in which she gives him a strained smile alongside a curt nod; the tension still taught between them.
He backs out of Trauma One and takes a leisurely stroll up behind you. You’ve dozed off somewhere in between him habitually sanitizing his hands and pulling a singular latex glove from a box nearby. He spares you a moment, so he can read the long waiting list of patients allocated to rooms across the department.
Snap!
You jolt awake from the feeling of thin rubber striking the back of your neck. You peel your eyes open to see Robby bending at the waist to look at you warmly.
“Hello,” he says sweetly, his smile reaching his eyes, “Good sleep?”
“I’ve had better,” you grumble and rub at your eyes, “I was just catching up on my long overdue notes like you asked me to do.”
Robby hums, “It looked like it too,” he chirps sarcastically and takes a deep inhale as he speaks again, “Save the charting for later. I’ve got a patient with GERD that has your name written all over it. Easy case to wake up to.”
You emphasise your lack of enthusiasm as you stand, “You just told me to catch up on my charting.” it comes out as a whine.
“Yes, I did. Then you started dozing off at the workstation, so now, I’m telling you to follow me so we can get this patient discharged and free up a bed,” Robby lilts as you catch up with his pace, his eyes on every corner of the PTMC.
“If I have to redo my third-year of residency because of your indecisiveness on where to put me, Dr. Robby, I will be filing a report against you,” you grumble in discontent.
Robby huffs a laugh. “Ho-ho. I’ll be sure to send you flowers.”
“No you won’t.”
“No, I won’t. Not for that anyway.” Robby advises you casually, he spares you a glance over his shoulder with a crooked smile on his face, “Because you won’t have to redo your third-year.”
The easy banter between the two of you makes your stomach burn with giddiness.
You liked how things were going with Robby. Under the radar, no strings attached. Though, somehow, you both seemed to be getting a little tangled in your…well, entanglement.
It was proving to be difficult to not have the boundaries blend into a real thing with all the bells and whistles of emotional feelings attached. The initial intentions were simply just for sexual pleasure—and then you started getting pleasure by just co-existing.
It was messy. But it was your kind of messy.
McKay catches up to you, bumping your shoulder with hers, “How’s it going? I haven’t seen you all morning.”
“About to give a patient a shot of Mylanta for his GERD,” you respond quietly, “Dr. Robby caught me sleeping.”
“Yikes.” she cringes, “Well, he’ll keep you right.”
He has been for the better half of the year, in more ways than you know. Is how you want to respond to Cassie’s innocent statement. You settle for the latter of a hopeful smile and shrug of your shoulders.
The three of you come to a slow halt in front of the patient bay Robby had selected for you off of the board.
You peer into the window of the room.
A bucket of ice cold water dumps over you.
“I can’t take this case on,” you blurt in a panic, which in turn has Robby and McKay’s heads cock to the side, because what do you mean you’re rejecting a case as a R3? You shake your head, “No, seriously. It sounds stupid, but I matched with that guy on Tinder, and…it didn’t end on good terms.”
It was true. The male sitting upright on the gurney, in a hospital gown one size too big for him, was currently under the status of blocked on your phone.
Things had been going well within the app at the time, you matched, connected over menial interests and then took the conversation to text message. You must’ve missed the lesson in life that made the translation of app messaging to text messaging the equivalent to a hard launch into a relationship with a guy you had never met face-to-face.
Because—and what a story to weave into a one truth and two lies game it had come to be—whilst you were elbow deep in a wide array of traumas that wheeled through the doors of the PTMC, this guy had left exactly 54 text messages, 32 missed calls and 1 beautifully arranged voicemail that poetically told you that you fumbled the catch of the century.
(Fish were slippery for a reason, right?)
Even with the slight malicious tone blurred between his words, you still kept the voicemail; because it was deeply comforting to play to your co-worker Dennis Whitaker at 4PM after his patient had just coded.
McKay dips her head to speak lowly to you. “You mean he’s the guy?”
“What…guy?” Robby’s question is lost to the wind when you squeal out confirmation to McKay that the patient was in fact, the guy.
He watches the exchange between you and McKay like a third party stuck behind a noise cancelling window. Somewhere amongst the back and forth with hints of worry and mild amusement, Robby starts to feel left out from the bigger picture.
Tinder. Voicemail. Blocked, is all he took away from this. So…he frowns and crosses his arms across his chest.
“Wow. In the flesh…I’ll swap you for Central 8,” McKay barters, “Utensil through the nose.”
“Can someone tell me what’s going on here?” Robby cuts through with his hands up, “You have history with this guy?” he thumbs to the door of South 15.
You nod, “Not so much a history, more a brief encounter that’s funny to talk about over drinks.”
“Yeah. Well, we—” he gestures between you “—aren’t having drinks.” Robby supposes there’s some sort of streak of jealousy going on in his voice, “Can you catch me up to speed? This guy needs a shot.”
You launch into a shortened version of the story of how this man came to gain such a notoriety that extended all the way into the pit of the PTMC and used for comedy relief after patient coding. Robby, for all intents and purposes, is trying his best to keep a neutral, maybe slightly concerned facial expression as you gesticulate through a brief recap of how you and this guy came to be.
It’s poorly timed the way the envy flares in his chest. He cranes his neck to take a look at the patient again, brows in a pinch because seriously? You had been setting up a potential, future relationship with that?
Then you casually drop into the conversation that the male had informed you that someone like you, served no purpose for a man with such a catalogue of aptitudes. (He works in finance.)
And Michael Robinavitch doesn’t like that.
“So, that’s your type?” Robby physically cannot help himself. It’s like he’s purposely being conspicuous.
You hesitate in surprise, “Obviously not? I don’t really have a type, per se.” (You do. He’s staring right at you.) “I mean, this was all before…”
“Before?” Robby goads, shifting from one foot to the other, he sinks his hands into his fleece pockets, pulling at the lint gathered there as the words get stuck in your throat. “Alright. I’ll take the case. In the meantime, you can go back to catching up on your notes. I’ll come find you afterwards.”
“Dr. Robby, I’m happy to swap cases with her—”
“I’ve got it.” Robby cuts McKay off with a curt nod and polite smile—something she isn’t buying.
McKay surrenders, but not without flitting her eyes between the pair of you. If there was anyone that could read signs a mile off, Cassie McKay was the woman for that.
Thankfully, she doesn’t press on the matter as she breaks away from the group.
“Discreet, Dr. Robby,” you murmur.
Robby pulls a face that is ridiculously handsome and borderline cocky, “I’ve got this. Charting. Go.”
Robby finds you at a different workstation much later on. More awake, a few more cases under your belt, but still wearing a notable level of bleariness. He provided the shot of Mylanta to your ‘what could’ve been’ and spent half of his time between other patients, rendering to the insecurities of the probability that he was the oldest male you have ever been with.
He mulls over his words until he finds a way to express this to you.
“So…Tinder?”
“Nope.” you look up at him, “Offloaded the app.”
“Hm.” Robby nods with a frown and then decides to put some feelers out there, “Do…you think I have a predisposition to geriatric behaviours?”
Your fingers halt on the keyboard. The patient notes on the monitor are forgone for an easier distraction. The expression of perplexity is hard to squash when your brows pinch at the question that has seemingly been plucked from the thin air of the PTMC.
Robby stands at full height over the workstation. Brown eyes shimmering beneath the clinical lighting, there was an ease in his shoulders that hadn’t been there before and the look of innocent curiosity blended nicely amongst his weathered features.
His long fingers tap idly at the surface top.
You hesitate, and then point a finger to your chest, “Are you asking me?”
“Well—” Robby exhales through his nose as he leans against the workstation, his forehead creasing as he peers over the rim of his glasses at you. “—I’d like to think you could give me some biassed insight.”
He tosses a lopsided smile in your direction, and you harness some restraint to ensure that from an outsiders perspective that this was an ordinary conversation between the Chief Attending and a third year resident. When you poke your tongue into the flesh of your cheek to prevent a broad smile spreading across your features, that is when Robby mirrors the amusement filled to the brim in your eyes.
Workplace relationships came with hardships.
It was becoming evident that having a loosely labelled ‘relationship’ with Michael Robinavitch, the long-time bachelor of the PTMC, was a whole different ballgame altogether.
It was a long-standing commitment, the act of secret keeping that is. An oath to keep things under wraps, whilst also balancing the navigation on what to do when the leak eventually becomes noticeable—all whilst surviving a twelve hour shift on a protein bar and a prayer. It meant that you were met with hurdles like: how morally grey is it really to sleep with your boss, who could also provide you with a gleaming recommendation at the end of your residency?
The answer fell somewhere in the ‘power imbalances’ category in the tedious employee handbook.
(Luckily for you, you only skimmed the surface on the hierarchical structures chapter.)
It also meant that Robby would often approach you throughout the day with a bucketful of insecurities to unload in a feeble attempt to salvage the dignity that he lost on the way. Unfortunately—he thinks, for you anyway—his keen interest to receive intermittent reassurance from you that the gap in your ages was justifiable, through the form of abnormal questions that dogpiled onto your already stressful day; was his way of seeing the world through your eyes.
It was sort of…pendatically romantic.
You begin to type your notes again, “Did Javadi school you again?”
“No…” Robby frowns at the thought, “Just extending some morbid curiosity.” he leans one arm against the workstation and scans the rooms closest within his vicinity. “And, you can put an end to my suffering right about now—”
“You act your age.”
Robby slowly edges his attention to you.
“Act my age?”
You let out an airy laugh, “That’s a good thing. It means you didn’t peak in your formative years. Or the years following that.”
“Huh.” Robby clicks his tongue as he straightens up, shaking a finger in your direction whilst he reads off the board, “Pinning this for later. I did not like the way you worded that.”
“You got it, boss.” you track his movements as he rounds the workstation to depart it.
Robby lets out a cackle from the back of his throat as he leaves, angling his body with his hands up to allow space for Trinity Santos to stroll past him. She occupies the vicinity in his immediate absence, her jaw slack as she stares over her shoulder at the humoured physician disappearing into the south-end of the department.
As she idles up to the workstation, her brunette hair swishes around when she turns her attention to you.
“What did Dr. Goofy want?” she asks plainly.
“Dr. Goofy?” you repeat, unable to prevent your face from cracking with mirth.
Santos shrugs, “Yeah. He’s been…like super chill recently. He seems happier? I don’t know. There’s an underground betting pool going on about the source of Dr. Robby’s joy.”
“Really?” you brighten at the thought, “Have you put money on something?”
“He’s getting laid,” Santos admits, her eyes narrow whilst she looks around, lowering her voice at the same time, “I just…don’t know who. I mean it has to be someone in the PTMC, right? I like to think he’s like a caged animal—the hospital and his apartment are the only two roaming spaces for the guy.”
You hum, locking the computer. “Or he’s going to therapy?” (You knew that wasn’t true. Just throwing Santos off her scent.)
“Yeah,” she scoffs, “Like the rest of us are.”
“True.” you stand and stretch your spine until there’s a soft crack. The clock above ticks just over the next hour, “I’m going to spin round the perimeter and grab a coffee.”
Trinity saddles up into the desk chair you had resided in for the last fifteen minutes and gives you a two-finger salute as you walk away.
There’s a release of breath that escapes you once you turn down the corridor toward the coffee station besides Pedes. The news breaking that Robby’s sudden one-eighty into an optimistic nature following some questionable behaviours for a male edging into his fifties, was being highlighted amongst the gamblers of the Pitt; and that was enough to have your pulse quicken.
It wouldn’t be such a crime to be unearthed by your co-workers. At some point, honesty would be the best policy and you weren’t so sure that the on-call rendezvous would go under the radar for much longer. However, it would feel similar to a humiliation ritual if your situation were to be exposed through sticky notes on the whiteboard in the dispatch room and a lump sum at the end of it.
When you think about it, you take the mental note to take a leisurely stroll toward dispatch to try sneak a glance at the betting pool exclusionary toward one Chief Attending.
The slop of coffee sputters into the white styrofoam cup with you patiently waiting with a yawn to encapsulate the low energy levels from spending the night at Robby’s, that had finally caught up to you mid-shift. You slow blink as the liquid fills to the brim of the cup, adding your preferences to the sorry excuse of a caffeine hit.
You press the lid around the rim until it gives a soft pop.
By some hideous trick of unfortunate timings and coincidental placement, when you bring the steaming hot coffee to your lips, Robby zooms into your periphery and swipes it out of your hand in hurried passing. He plants it at the coffee station as he ushers you with urgency with a hand to your back.
The touch would have sent your stomach swirling—especially if it had been hours since the last—if it weren’t for your open mourning over the loss of caffeine searing your taste buds.
You let out a longing whine, “My coffee.”
“Will be reheated. By me, personally.” he swings the door from North into Central and manoeuvres you toward the South bays. “Right now, we need you in 15 with an AFib cardioversion.”
“We?” you repeat, “Am I the guest of honour for this cardiovert?”
Robby backs into the door of 15 with his hands already slathered in sanitiser. He tilts his chin, exuding healthy amounts of cockiness. “This is a teaching hospital, regardless of a more senior role. Let me teach you,” he croons.
You chew back a snarky remark about Robby getting a new hobby instead of ‘peacocking’ around you for some telepathic praise. Instead, you find yourself opposite Robby as he snaps the latex gloves up to his wrists and observes the patient whilst Mel, beside you, presents the case to him.
The patient is within your age range. Sort of handsome if you thought about it for too long. He looks up at you, his eyes glazed in awe. It was as if the white lighting overhead had created a halo effect around your head and he was witnessing the presence of an angel in real time.
He gives you a lovesick, dopey smile. (You get that a lot.)
Which, considering his circumstances, was a good sign in the grand scheme of things.
“They hire from heaven or somethin’?” his question is met with a blanket of silence. His chest rises and falls at an unsteady pace—part of you wonders if it’s his condition or if it’s down to the fact that he is quite taken with you.
Mel glances between the pair of you as she preps the propofol.
The monitor beeps behind Robby, who silently tilts his head to see how you approach the compliment.
“Oh.” your eyes drift to Robby who scrunches one eye shut, his lips pressing into a thin line as you hesitate. You give an airy chuckle, “Delivered especially for you, Mr…” you look to Mel who mouths the patient’s surname, “King—Quinn.”
Robby glares at you, each wrinkle in his forehead lined with judgement that makes your skin prickle. “Mel, what is the safe window for cardioversion?”
“Uh, twelve hours.”
Brown eyes find you again. “What happens after that?”
“Increased risk of embolic stroke from left atrial blood clot,” you say, eyes following Robby’s direction to the monitor as he encourages you to continue the diagnosis, “…Which he doesn’t have.”
“Good,” he mutters softly. (You give him a warning glance to end the praise there.)
Mr. Quinn is in an immediate state of sedation with a successful cardioversion that sends him into a sinus rhythm that will need a few hours of monitoring. Something you don’t jump at the chance to do to lessen the work load that was quickly piling up on your shoulders.
You exit the room with Robby in tow.
He walks a few paces behind you, head on a swivel whilst he takes a headcount of fresh faced med-students roaming around the department. Once you’re out of earshot from nearby gossips—Princess and Perlah—Robby bends slightly to talk into your ear.
“I think you should give patients similar to your age, a wide-birth.” his tone is playful in its emphasis at the very least.
You tut, “Why encourage patient negligence? I’m clearly a crowd favourite.”
“Tell that to the grey hairs you give me.” Robby pinches your wrist as he takes over you, heading in the direction of Pedes. Presumably to the coffee station, where your abandoned coffee remains—you hope anyway. “Reheated coffee coming right up. I’ll come find you.”
“You seem to be doing that a lot today,” you call back to him. He doesn’t respond.
You decide to double back toward dispatch, to cash in the mental note of placing a bet on the secret betting pool on Robby’s newfound happiness. As always, you find Ahmad standing at the door with his thumbs tucked into his belt loops whilst he scopes his surroundings.
He looks bored. So, you give him something to be excited about.
“Do my ears deceive me, or is there some exclusionary betting pool going on that I wasn’t aware about, Ahmad?” you sing as you approach him.
Ahmad instantly brightens, “Maybe.”
“What have the wagers been so far?”
“$40 on new motorcycle, $20 on a pay rise, another $20 on pussycat.” Ahmad glances at you with a knowing smirk, “Santos submitted that one.”
“Go figure,” you mumble.
“Are you in, doc?”
You nod and reach into your scrub pocket, “Sure, why not. I’ll put…$20 on a mid-life crisis.”
Ahmad smothers his laughter behind his fist. “That’s heartless. Alright. $20 on mid-life crisis.” he takes the bills from your grasp, “You’re lucky he ain’t part of this bet. That recommendation you need after your residency? Dust, if Robby knew.”
“It can be our little secret until then.” you tap at your nose.
“What can?”
The timing of Michael Robinavitch was impeccably vexing. As the eyes and ears of the ED, most of you began to fear that he was presenting evidence of omnipresence. He appears, he soaks up the happenings, and then he dissolves into the chaos.
If you wanted to be the one to water the reasoning down, it would be the fact that Robby was slowly becoming the South Pole magnet to your North Pole magnet and you just happened to create such a forceful magnetic field across the department, that it was near impossible to not drag himself toward you when he got the chance.
He’d just call it grabbing you a well-earned coffee.
You don’t bat an eyelid as you speak.
“That would defeat the purpose of secrets, Dr. Robinavitch.” you take the coffee from his grasp, fingers intentionally overlapping. You don’t flinch when you feel the card that had been conveniently placed on the underside of the cup—fingers curling to conceal it from Ahmad’s view.
Robby steps back and gives you a subtle nod.
On-call room. Fifteen minutes.
Ahmad holds his hands up in surrender, “I’m out on this one.”
He manoeuvres himself out of the situation with ease, leaving Robby and you exactly where you wanted to be. Out of earshot and in each other’s company.
You take a sip of your coffee, kissing your teeth at the bitterness. “You need to be a little more subtle.”
“That…is what the on-call room card is for.”
The next thing you knew, you were slipping into the on-call room five minutes after Robby. He meets you in the middle of the room with a face melting into unfiltered fondness, tugging you in by the crook of your elbow, his fingers featherlight against your arm as he envelops you into a warm embrace.
This was one of the very few places where CCTV couldn’t capture grainy footage of your bond. So, you soak it up when you can.
With your ear against his chest, you can hear the low rumble he lets out from being content where he is. You tilt your chin upward and he’s quick to catch your lips in a chaste kiss—greedily taking a second.
Being deprived of affection all day, you relish in his undivided attention.
Robby is staring deeply into your eyes, swaying you both. He decides to take a leap of faith, “Stay tonight?”
“Two nights in a row?”
“Yes…” Robby grumbles in a warning.
A smile creeps onto your face. “I think this could be a healthier habit for you to adopt. No reason for me to say no.”
Crows-feet prominent, Robby smiles and dips to kiss you again. You pull away and begin to pick at the bobbling on the fleece he wears. He keeps you in the warmth of his arms, tucking his chin to watch you busy yourself.
After a couple of seconds, he brings up a relevant topic of discussion.
“You want to tell me what that was about with Ahmad?” he coos.
You give him an innocent expression, “No idea what you’re talking about. We were just having a discussion.”
“Ah.” Robby draws his brows together, “Nothing to do with the wagers being placed against the reasoning behind my…” he takes a deep breath, “upbeat tempo these days?”
“Don’t make a snitch out of me, Robinavitch.” you nudge his chest in disbelief, “How’d you know about it?”
“Well. This is my department. I know the inner workings of the entire ecosystem, sweetheart,” he croons before adding, “Plus, Abbot was ecstatic to be the one to tell me.”
You scoff at the revelation. It just had to be Jack Abbot.
“Are you mad?”
“Oh, I think I’ll survive the outside noise for a little while longer.” Robby traces your cheekbone with the pad of his thumb, in a way that feels less along the lines of no strings attached. “What did you put your money on?”
“Something not relating to your sexual deviance.” you tease and Robby brings his fingers up to tug at your earlobe. You moisten your lips and bare your teeth in a sickly sweet smile to soften the blow, “I put $20 on mid-life crisis.”
Robby’s brows shoot to his hairline, squeezing his eyes shut as he gives his head a wobble to digest your words. There was a conversation that needed to be had somewhere in there; just much, much further down the line.
And outside of the PTMC. To preserve both of your sanities.
You find yourself trailing the palms of your hands down Robby’s forearms—half covered by the rolled up sleeves of his fleece—to soothe his outward reaction of immediate discontent at the accusation you haphazardly flung out.
A fucking mid-life crisis.
“You…give me a headache,” he says earnestly.
“I know. But you like it.” (Correction: he loves it.)
Robby draws back with little time left before your co-workers begin to put two and two together due to the convenient disappearance of you both.
“I suppose I’ll take it on the chin.” he shoots you a playful look, his eyes glinting with mischief, “I put in an anonymous wager in myself two nights ago. Perks of being the last one to leave this fucking place.”
“Oh yeah?” your interest piques.
He reaches for the handle of the door, scratching at the coarseness of his beard with his other hand, “Yeah. I think I have a good shot at winning,” he chirps.
“Okay.” you nod your head in amusement as he walks away from you, “What did you even wage on? New motorcycle?”
The door buzzes open and Robby swings it open with his face filling with mirth. He leaves you in the on-call room with a singular word uttered; sending you into a frozen shock.
“$40 on girlfriend.”
gif credit: @emziess !
